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HomeMy WebLinkAboutForestry & Parks Committee - Minutes - 6/9/2025 BAYFIELD COUNTY FORESTRY AND PARKS DEPARTMENT COMMITTEE MEETING June 9, 2025 County Board Room Members Present: Fred Strand; Steve Sandstrom; Larry Fickbohm; Charly Ray; Jeff Olsen Staff in Attendance: Jason Bodine, Administrator; Deanna Regan, Office Manager Others in Attendance: Joseph LeBouton, WI DNR 1. Call to Order of Forestry and Parks Committee Meeting. This meeting was called to order at 6:01 PM. 2. Public Comment: None. Public comment closed at 6:01 PM. 3. Approval of the May 12th Meeting Minutes. MOTION: (Fickbohm, Olsen) Approve minutes and place on file. All: Yes. Carried. 4. Resolution: 2025 Budget Amendment. Accepting a DNR Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Grant and Expenditures for the Replacement of County Forest Lands. A total of 645.7 acres will be purchased across 7 different properties for a grand total of roughly $1,115,950. The actual county share for the project was determined to be $406,386. When including the match property, this project covers 722.7 acres and is worth roughly $1.464 million. The resolution authorizes the Department to accept the grant and complete the purchase of these properties. Closing would occur on or around July 8. At the request of a landowner, the purchase of one property will be split over the next year, with one portion closing in July 2025, and the other in early 2026. Once completed, the land would be enrolled in County Forest Law and managed as part of the Bayfield County Forest. This will leave around $915k in the land acquisition account. This resolution and the blocking boundary resolution addressed last month will also be on the next Board agenda for action. MOTION: (Olsen, Sandstrom) Forward to Board with recommendation for approval. All: Yes. Carried. 5. Future Land Acquisition Goals and Priorities. Bodine attached a summary of the GIS analysis and ranking system developed internally and used as a guide to help locate potentially high priority properties for possible future acquisition. Committee discussed what they would like to see prioritized in future acquisitions. This could be an agenda item revisited in a future meeting. 6. Monthly Reports a) Forestry. We received the larger payment for the Delta Landfill project this week. Still closing out a much smaller admin grant associated with this project, which will help cover some of our internal admin costs. John Mesko will be officially retiring on July 11. We hope to have the position advertised by this weekend. a. 2025 Budget. Stumpage returns slowed down in May, with just over $189k received last month. This is well below the last three-year average for the month of May. To date, a total of nearly $1.75 million has been received. Delivery of the F600 dump truck has been delayed again. Hoping it arrives yet this month. Expecting to partner with Highway on the shared purchase of the hydroseeder soon. Expenses are on target. b. 2026 Budget. Started work on the 2026 budget. We’ll need to replace one or two of the work trucks but not anticipating any big capital purchases next year. Planning to have a draft of the budget ready for the August meeting since we don’t normally meet in July. Bayfield County Forestry & Parks Committee June 9, 2025 Meeting Minutes Page 2 of 3 c. Carbon Project. ANEW confirmed the completion of several small sales involving roughly 16,000 credits. Payment is expected by the end of the month. Still working on providing data associated with reporting period 4, as well as migrating our project to ACR IFM version 2.1 d. Land Acquisition Projects. i. Community Forest Grant-Iron River Community Forest. This project officially closed last week. The landowners have until Sept to remove an old house and cap a well located on one of the southernmost 40’s. If they don’t, we’ll do it (likely through Highway) and send them the bill. A memorandum to that effect was added at closing. As part of the Community Forest grant, we’re responsible for developing a management plan for the property, similar to what was completed as part of the Sand River acquisition. Bodine plans to have that ready by the August meeting. Another 860 acres that will be added to the county forest!! ii. Whittlesey Creek. This project is approaching 3 years old and the landowner requested an updated valuation. In 2023, it was appraised at $176k. It was just re- appraised at $244k and the landowner wants more money. Landmark already secured a Stewardship grant based on the original appraised value. They can’t obligate additional funds. We’ve reached out to Coastal to see if they can increase our portion, though haven’t heard back from them yet (and we still haven’t received a contract from their initial award). This landowner had also committed to a 10% bargain sale, though it hasn’t been confirmed if he will continue to honor that. If everything falls into place, including Coastal providing more funds and the landowner agreeing to previous terms, Landmark will be looking for roughly $28k to complete this acquisition. They have no other options available which means they will be approaching the county to cover that difference. It’s 160 acres in Barksdale, with the headwaters of the N. Fork of the Whittlesey. High conservation value, with some future timber management potential. Public access will be secured, but is still fairly limited. For $28k, Bodine recommends it. We’re still waiting for some of the remaining pieces to fall into place and running short on time. iii. Siskiwit River. We did not receive a Stewardship grant for this project (not supported by the Town of Bell) and still have not received formal support from the Coastal program. The purchase agreement was written to close or expire on July 8, 2025. Bodine reached out to the landowner for an extension until at least October 8, 2025, which they’ve verbally agreed to, signatures haven’t been secured on the extension. Hope to get those next week. With the unknowns still swirling around federal funding, it is highly probable that none would be received in time for an October closing. e. WCFA Board Member Update. Have the summer meeting next week. Some of our Forestry team is attending. Will report back next meeting. b) Campgrounds and Day Use Parks. The new (to us) swim raft at Twin Bear was installed this week. All of the retaining wall and site work was completed last month. The Big Rock sign at the corner of Hwy C and Big Rock Rd is also finally ready to install, but still waiting on repairs to the Highway sign truck before that can be completed. Hopefully that will go up within the next week. New maps/signs have also been ordered for the kiosks at each campground. Starting to get into the busy camping season. c) Trails and Recreation. a. Motorized Trail Updates. Continue to work on a variety of trail maintenance and improvement projects, with many projects involving Highway. Still planning to inherit the management of all ATV/UTV trails on federal lands starting July 1. Lindley is also working on closing out the motorized grants from the past FY and updating contracts with various clubs. b. Non-Motorized Trails Updates. Sara is starting to work on updates to numerous rec use agreements, as well as the LCORP. She also organized site visits to the Pigeon Lake (with Kelly W.) and Maxwell (Northland) properties (with a variety of Northland professors). Highway completed some trail work on the Tomahawk Lake trail system. Planning a variety of different improved lake access projects, including exploring options at Topside Lake. Dusting off conversations about interpretive signs again and hoping the fourth time is a charm. Exploring options to help with the maintenance of the various bathrooms we have up north (CAMBA/Whiting, Siskiwit Falls, Lost Creek Falls and Jolly). Bayfield County Forestry & Parks Committee June 9, 2025 Meeting Minutes Page 3 of 3 c. Yurts. Occupancy at the Cable location remains poor. We plan to work with Tourism on ways to improve occupancy, likely involving some sort of re-promotion, and could also consider offering coupons or other incentives (like mid-week specials) d. Events. Nothing new to report. Committee acknowledges that reports are received and placed on file. 7. Committee Members Discussion. Committee commented favorably on Lindley’s weekly report write- up. Discussion regarding spongy moth and Dutch Elm disease. 8. Joseph LeBouton, DNR Representative, Comments: None. The next Forestry and Parks Committee meeting has been scheduled for Monday, July 14th, at 6:00 PM in the County Board Room. Meeting adjourned at 7:04 PM. Submitted by, Deanna Regan